


Safe

by lastyoungrene_gay_de



Series: tua creators bingo [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Crying, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, canon character death, give diego a break pls, yEAH it's that kinda fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25754704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastyoungrene_gay_de/pseuds/lastyoungrene_gay_de
Summary: Diego's experience after leaving The Umbrella Academy.Part 5 of 9 for TUA Creators BingoPrompt: PTSD
Relationships: diego hargreeves/ eudora patch (implied)
Series: tua creators bingo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740223
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

> everyone always talks about klaus' ptsd from vietnam but every single one of those kids went through shit and it fucked them all up so here we fucking go.

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he left. He didn’t really know anything about life outside The Academy. The closest he had ever gotten to anything being explained to him was from Klaus, and he didn’t exactly anticipate living his life like Klaus did. 

He figured the first thing he needed to do was find a place to stay. Then he needed to find a job, and he needed to do both of them quickly. 

But before all that, he needed to get some anger out. He found a gym in the city that would give him a bag to punch for a while in exchange for the money he’d gotten from a pawn shop for some of Dad’s stuff he pocketed on the way out. (Okay, maybe he listened to Klaus about  _ some _ things about leaving.) 

“Hey, kid!” the man who owned the gym snapped as he walked up to the punching bag Diego was shoving around. “If you’re gonna stick around longer than what you paid for you gotta at least mop the floor.” 

Diego still for a moment before wiping the sweat off his hairline. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Of course. I- I’ll get right on that, sir.” 

“Jeez, kid I was only hasslin’ ya,” the man said. He eyed Diego’s duffle bag and backpack in the empty corner closest to his set up. “Where you goin’?” 

“I don- do,” Diego paused and clenched his fists even tighter in his boxing gloves. He took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t know, sir,” he said quickly to ensure he got it all out. 

“Knock it off with the ‘sir’ crap, kid,” the man said and took a step toward Diego, who felt his entire body stiffen involuntarily. The man didn’t seem to notice and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You can stay in the back room for a few days until you get yourself together.” 

Diego instantly relaxed a little, but still looked at the man warily. “R-really?” 

“You do gotta mop the floors if you stay,” he said. Diego smiled softly, so softly he wasn’t sure if the man could see it. “What’s your name, kid?” 

“Diego.” 

“Diego,” he repeated with a nod. “M’ name’s Al. Mops in the storage closet, room’s around the corner.” Diego nodded firmly and turned to find the mop. It was only then that Diego realized he’d been standing in attention, like the soldier he was raised to be. 

  
  


Later that night, after mopping the floor and gratefully taking the bed, he woke up to sirens blaring on the street. Without thinking, Diego jumped out of bed and ran toward his closet. Back at the Academy. He only stopped when his hands made contact with solid concrete walls instead of the wood doors of his wardrobe. 

“Wha’,” he muttered, looking around, vision still blurred from sleep. “Dad?” But Dad wasn’t there. Because he wasn’t at the Academy any more. 

But when he closed his eyes he was. 

He was back in his room in the Academy and his father was yelling at them all from the hallway to hurry up. He could hear his siblings’ footsteps pounding on the floor outside his room. They all ran past- Luther, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben- but no. That wasn’t right. Five was gone. Ben was dead. Klaus didn’t go on missions anymore. 

He opened his eyes and he was back in the strange room in the back of the gym. He realized he was crying. He wiped his eyes and sat on the bed. 

It happened anytime he heard a siren or saw any kind of flashing red light. Sometimes he would go back, being hurried away from his room by his father to go fight in fights that weren’t his. Sometimes he just skipped straight into the shaking and crying. 

He stayed at the gym much longer than Al originally meant, but it didn’t seem to bother him, so he stuck around. He made friends with the regulars, panicked less and less over sirens, and eventually made some kind of life for himself outside The Umbrella Academy. 

He did realize there was one thing about the academy he didn’t hate as much as he thought he did. He didn’t hate it at all, actually. He liked helping people. 

What did did next was stupid, but when had he ever been known to do anything smart, right? Never, according to his father. He joined the police academy. He went to the source of the sirens he heard everyday. Maybe a part of him thought it would help desensitize him to it so he could move the fuck on and not lose him mind everytime he heard one. It didn’t. It sure didn’t help when the other trainees found out who he was and started calling him  _ Number Two _ . He didn’t last long after that. Eventually, he got thrown out for trying to do things his way.

He did learn a few things while he was there. Not enough to motivate him to stay, though.He did learn that cops were terrible, most didn’t really want to help or had no idea what they were getting into. He learned Eudora Patch was there for all the right reasons. He knew she wouldn’t last long, but that didn’t stop him from getting attached. She tried to help him, but when it came down to it he wouldn’t let her. He wouldn’t let himself get close enough to anyone- not after losing Five and Ben, and eventually the rest of his siblings one way or another. 

He didn’t tell anyone about his nightmares. The people they fought, training with his father, everyone he lost. They all came back somehow. He was tired. Just tired of it all. 

Klaus may have been the one with the powers to see the dead, but Diego had his ghosts too. 

He tried to distract himself. To avoid them he threw himself into different things, everything from annoying Patch to boxing to trying an office job. None of it helped him. Eventually he went back to stopping crime his own way, not the police’s or his fathers. His. And it helped a little. He was doing better. His heart stopped pounding after every night out. His flashbacks to his childhood became contained to nightmares. 

Things got bad again when the book came out. He’d had no warning. He hadn’t talked to Vanya since they all left, and suddenly her twelve year old face was everywhere. Shop windows, strangers’ hands, workers’ desks. Her eyes seemed to follow him, but then again… after that everyone’s did. 

The first time he saw it he refused to even believe it. He refused to believe Vanya would do that. She didn’t even go through half the shit the rest of them did. She didn’t know what they had to go through. Diego didn’t even know much about what the others had to go through, and if she never talked to  _ him _ what were the chances she talked to any of the others? 

He let himself spiral as he thought all this. He didn’t bother trying to stop himself. Were his siblings falling into a place this dark too? Or was this just him? Was he the odd one out? Was he the one not actually able to move on? Was Klaus panicking over it as much as he was? Was Allison throwing a fit at the wrench thrown into the cogs of her perfect reputation? Did Luther even know it existed? Knowing he was still at The Academy made that a real question. Diego knew what the lengths their father would go to in order to shield him from the truth. 

He didn’t really believe the book was real until he managed to get his hands on a copy he could read without putting money in his sister’s pocket. He got four pages in before he had to stop, vision blurring and hands shaking. He tried to continue again a few days later. He ended up sobbing at the first mention of Ben, his brother he’d been forcing himself not to think about for all those years. His bloody body appeared everytime Diego closed his eyes. 

Eventually he gave up. He didn’t even get twenty pages in, but he couldn’t keep going. Not when every other paragraph sent him spiraling back into his childhood room, alarms blaring and lights flashing, his father’s voice echoing off the walls. 

He didn’t leave his room for days, too worried about all the eyes that would undoubtedly be on him. When he finally did, he found a different copy of the book and ripped the ‘about the author’ section at the end out. It didn’t need it anyway. It was an autobiography- the entire goddamn thing was an ‘about the author’ section. 

Number Seven’s picture looked good taped to a punching bag. 

He was glad Al never said anything, but Al never said anything about the weird crap Diego did. 

But somehow Patch found out. After a while, she suggested therapy. Diego laughed in her face. His punching bag was very therapeutic, he reasoned. Other than that he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to go back to being a stuttering mess, even though Patch never made any comments about it. Now everyone could if they wanted to. 

He was grateful to see the book’s momentum slow. It wasn’t one people would read religiously, it seemed. It was a talking point at the next family gathering then quickly forgotten. Every store that displayed it in their windows when it was first released now covered it in discount stickers. 

He moved on. Not enough to think he would ever forgive Vanya for the situation she put him in, but he stopped panicking every time he stepped outside. 

Then his dad died, and he had to surround himself with every part of The Academy all over again. He almost turned around before he even took his first step inside. He felt small as soon as he walked through the door. Not because the foyer was huge, or the grand staircase and skylight opened the space up even more, but because he felt like a scared kid again. He was wearing his Academy blazer again and the echo of the fancy, uncomfortable shoes their father made him wear filled his ears. He shook the memories from his head and went inside. 

He couldn’t look at Vanya when she showed up. He just made some snarky comment about how she should have been there, but made a point to look straight ahead and go straight for the stairs. He almost cried when he first saw Mom. She looked exactly the same. At least some things didn’t. 

“Were you the first one on the scene?” Luther had asked. As if Diego would ever want to be in the house, in his father’s  _ bedroom _ , without being certain he was dead first. That’s why he broke into the coroner’s office to see the autopsy report. Dad had heart failure. Dad was dead. It wasn’t a trick to get them all back to the Academy. It was safe to go back. 

**Author's Note:**

> i didnt mean for this to end up this long it was just supposed to be a little after him leaving then it became this. anyway, as always, come talk to be on tumblr about tua or the kids or anything @lastyoungrene-gay-de


End file.
